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Labour holds its Ed in its hands

Sep 25

Posted by Jeff in Democracy, Parties | 7 Comments

So the results are in and Ed has pipped his big brother to the Labour leadership by 51% to 49%. Not that a small winning margin necessarily dilutes one’s margin. Deputy Prime Minister Clegg beat Chris Huhne by a tiny amount and he’s done alright for himself.

I suspect it is less the scoreline that will undermine Ed and more a cantankerous Balls as Shadow Chancellor, a man with an unswerving, unnerving belief in his own abilities who may struggle to shout his ego down and stop believing that he should really be in charge. Will those internal briefing reflexes kick in if it doesn’t work out with Ed in charge? We’ll have to wait and see.

Similarly, I can’t see David Miliband wanting to go through this ordeal only to remain as Shadow Foreign Minister for four long years. I wonder if big brother is considering the private sector.

On policy, the cheers from the Tory HQ will have been genuine but potentially misguided. Genuine because Ed’s assertion that Darling’s pre-election stance of halving the budget in 4 years is ‘just the beginning’ suggests a worryingly complacent return to increasing spending but misplaced because although the coalition-friendly media’s narrative is that Cameron has won the argument on cutting the deficit, we don’t have the detail of this year’s £9bn of cuts, let alone next year’s £41bn. If the public is thinking that Osborne isn’t so bad as Chancellor after all then they may be ignorant to the wave of pain that’s on its way.

What say the Greens? Well, I suspect that their already stifled voices will be even harder to hear now as Ed’s genuine green credentials are more than sufficient for a regrettably disinterested public.

Another aspect to this result is that strong union support for Ed suggests weak MP support. How quickly will Alan Johnson, Tom Harris, Jim Murphy etc slide their support for David as squarely behind Ed? I suspect Labour’s period of introspection will continue largely unabated.

The new Labour leader may have the unions on his side and the policies in his corner, but does he have his party at his back?

Holyrood 2011 – Policies or Personalities?

Sep 24

Posted by Jeff in Democracy, Elections, Parties | 2 Comments

With it now 93 days to Christmas, it is getting tantalisingly close to the day when we find out who has been a good girl or boy and suitably rewarded therein. I personally can’t wait for that bleary-eyed morning with a rotund, jovial man bearing his gifts of knowledge. Yes, that’s right, the Holyrood election 2011 is drawing ever nearer.

Above all else, the public deserves one thing from our representatives at election time and that is dividing lines. With the centre left a particularly crowded field it is difficult to see where, or even if, these dividing lines will open up between now and May. Indeed, I fear that the inertia that has crept in at Holyrood of late will result in personality rather than policies being the only real criterion for a disaffected public. That thought crystallised yesterday morning when I read this excerpt from The Herald’s coverage of the minimum pricing issue:

LibDem health spokesman Ross Finnie warned that there was a risk of an “entirely polarised debate” and that everything the SNP Government said on alcohol was “rubbish”.

There is no doubting that alcohol is a fight that Scotland is currently losing on many fronts; health-related, crime-related, education-related and even reputationally. It doesn’t take long for a Scotsman abroad to bear the brunt of a crass comment about his/her homeland and booze, with or without bumping into Prince Philip.

However, as Ross Finnie has pointed out, the two main parties are not close to reaching any agreement in this “polarised” debate and while the Lib Dem spokesman tries to portray himself as the reasonable alternative, he undermines that objective by bizarrely calling the Government’s proposals “rubbish” when they are, at the very least, reasonable and valid.

The Conservatives have their own valid argument, a libertarian approach that seems to revolve around some mythical ‘squaddie’ who has longed to come home from Afghanistan and tuck into some cut-price cider. The Greens, most impressively but inconspicuously of all, have looked at the SNP’s proposals, thought they looked fair enough and have been onboard ever since. Once again the silent heroes of the piece, if only there were more of them alongside Patrick and Robin.

Most parties have circled around this policy area, and many others, that they all agree need addressed but they have contrived to allow their personalities to get in the way of an optimal policy where everybody wins.

Will this be the template for the election campaign?

With the amount of money that Scotland will be given to spend over the coming years set to drop sharply, one can’t envisage that any of the parties will be able to pull together an attractive manifesto, not while balancing their numbers that is. This may well drag all commitments to a horribly vague middle-ground and leave the voter little choice.

There should be clear policy dividing lines on local taxation (SNP/Lib Dem – Local Income Tax, Greens – Land Value Tax, Tories/Labour – Council tax/to be decided) and minimum pricing if it remains an issue but I cannot envisage these topics being the main talking points of the election campaign. Cuts and jobs/economy are the main issues and all parties want less of the former and more of the latter. Not many dividing lines there.

One would expect the SNP to hold an advantage over the other parties with the mighty Salmond consistently leading polls that focus on party leaders. One could also argue that the SNP has had a relatively successful four years policy-wise so perhaps, with Labour so far ahead in the polls, I should not limit the crucial factor of the 2011 election to these two considerations.

The main personality question will depend on whether the main Opposition party, Labour, continues to oppose all spending cuts by the SNP Government or seeks to offer an alternative budget. To this end, January 2011 will be a crucial period as voting begins on the budget for 2011/12.

Was Labour to continue playing the politics of decrying every job loss, every project scrappage and every decrease in expenditure then the result of 2011 will depend on whether the public responds favourably to such a strategy.

Scotland would be best served by a substantive policy debate, not a squabbling contest built on inflated egos and unshakeable truculence, but I guess we’ll just wait and see which of the two awaits us.

Wither Internal Democracy

Sep 23

Posted by James in Governance, Parties | 15 Comments

Should a party’s annual conference make binding policy, and what role should an ordinary party member have in those decisions? Scotland’s main political parties appear to have come to very different answers to this question, which I will try to sum up below. Please bear in mind that I have only got direct experience of my own party in this respect, and will be happy to correct any factual errors below.

At one end, the Scottish Conservatives adopt an approach to policy-making which does not include any notion of internal democracy. There are no votes on policy matters at conference, even token ones, although early in the Cameron era his Built To Last document was submitted to a vote. Instead, the leadership determines policy: typically just the leader plus his or her kitchen cabinet. In this sense therefore, the Tory system is relatively close to that used by the Workers’ Party of Korea, who rarely bother with the rubber-stamp assembly beloved of other notionally leftwing personality cults. It’s at least honest, and to be fair, since 1998 the Tories have also let the membership choose their leaders from a shortlist of two by one member, one vote. This is clearly progress over the old approach – where MPs only got a vote – or the even older version – a leader “emerged” from the “magic circle”: i.e. it was carved up out of sight in a way that must have been great fun for those who regard politics as a full contact bloodsport.

Next along this sliding scale: Labour. Their procedures used to be highly democratic, including the formal setting of policy through motions such as the composites beloved of union bigwigs and loathed by the Millbank Tendency. This is all basically over now, with the leadership now setting all policy, not even the Blairite National Policy Forum. Some of the changes are relatively recent: until 2007 branch parties and trade unions could bring policy motions for a vote, even if the results would then be ignored by Labour Ministers. Having mentioned leadership above, personally I also deplore the way Labour allows people to join several “socialist societies” and unions and get several votes for a new leader, not to mention the way MPs both sift the candidates then get massively disproportional say in the outcome.

Then the Lib Dems. They have picked a particularly bizarre point on the spectrum from Stalinist control through to radical democracy. As I understand it, their conference is open to all members, all of whom can vote and bring forward motions. The problem is they mean nothing, especially when Lib Dem Ministers have got some selling out to do. This week the issue was so-called “free schools”, discussed here previously by Jeff. As the Lib Dem proponent of the motion said, “Just as the supermarket drives the corner shop out of business, so it will be with schools.” Danny Alexander, described by one Twitter wag as tree-promoter turned economics expert, then declared it would make no difference to policy. The same used to apply to Scottish Lib Dem conference when they were in government here. The membership said that GM crop trials should stop. Ross Finnie pressed on regardless. Curious. Not particularly liberal nor notably democratic.

Although it was put to me that this blogpost was designed to make Greens look good, the brief research I’ve done does show the SNP joining us at the actually democratic end of this spectrum. I must admit I know less about the SNP’s procedures, but I do know that, like the Greens, their conference does formally set policy, with members and branches free to bring motions. I also can’t find an instance of the leadership simply over-ruling them, although Mr Cochrane, the Last Black-Hearted Unionist, has got one. The party’s leadership procedures are posted online in their entirety, and seem pretty hard to fault. Like us, it’s one member, one vote, no special treatment for MPs or interest groups.

The open question is not one of principle, though – obviously it’s hard to make a principled objection to internal democracy. But are parties with actually democratic procedures more likely to survive internal tensions and evolve, or can that internal democracy make it harder to respond to changing circumstances? Does Labour’s “democratic centralism” actually help them more than they pay in demoralised activists, unable even to slow a swing to the right? Those decisions surely weren’t taken simply for self-interest: Peter Mandelson or someone else must have concluded that the open expression of democracy was more damaging than the alternative. My sense is that that move was wrong both strategically and in principle, but I don’t have any evidence for that view.

And is going into government something which ought to change a party’s approach? Did the Lib Dems stick to the policy set by conference except where it restricted Lib Dem Ministers’ activity? Will Labour return to a more democratic approach now they’re in opposition across the country? Have the SNP really managed to keep internal democracy while running the Scottish Government? There seems little point letting the membership set policy only when you’re in opposition, rather than when you might be able to make real change.

As a press officer for a democratic party, I certainly see one downside of the radically democratic approach, not that I’d change it. Any radical new policy development the party makes can’t be unveiled dramatically in March or April of an election year. It must instead be decided in public at our autumn conference. If only there was a way we could agree any policy changes democratically but still keep them under our hats until we could publicise them as effectively as possible.

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Why I’ll probably vote No to the Alternative Vote

Sep 21

Posted by Malc in Constitution, Democracy | 48 Comments

Arguably, the main price of coalition for the Conservatives was the commitment to hold a referendum on electoral reforms – specifically on AV.  That was the Lib Dems red line (or orange line, I guess) issue – they want a system which is more proportional and, incidentally, one which will deliver them more seats.  But I’m not convinced that AV delivers on the first of those aims (though it probably will on the second – but that is probably a lesser concern).

So, why am I verging on being opposed to AV?  Well, several reasons.  First off, don’t confuse me for a First Past the Post apologist (see Harris, T – and while I don’t agree with him here, his point is well made).  I’m not.  I do believe we need electoral reform, and that we need a system which delivers a more proportional – more fair – outcome, one which provides much more in the way of a correlation between the votes cast for a party and the seats won by the same party.  You will note in that previous sentence I didn’t just say “more” but “much more”, and this is partly where AV does not deliver for me.  Yes, it will be (marginally) more proportional than FPTP but it does not go far enough to be proportional.  All we would be doing is making sure that voters in each constituency gave one candidate over 50% of the vote – and on a larger scale, all that would do is make landslides even bigger (since people would tend to vote for a popular party further down the ballot, even if they were not their first preference).

The second reason I’m opposed is that AV (whether the referendum is won or lost) precludes a properly proportional system being implemented – probably for the next 30 years at the very least.  What do I mean by that?  Well, it’s taken, what, three hundred years (and several reforms to the franchise) to get to the point where politicians are thinking about changing the electoral system, and even then they can’t agree on what to change it to.  So now we’re to have a vote on a system which is marginally more proportional than the current system, and it is a lose-lose situation for me.  If AV wins, we’re stuck with a system which does not adequately provide any real proportional element to the system.  If AV loses, we’re stuck with the status quo – a FPTP system which ignores the preferences of up to 70% of the electorate in any single constituency.  Either way, we’re unlikely to see any further change to the electoral system for the foreseeable future.

Without trying to be too negative here, I blame Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats for putting me in this position – its rock and hard place stuff.  Do I vote ‘Yes’ in the referendum, and end up stuck with a system which is in no discernible way a massive improvement on the FPTP system we currently use?  Or do I vote ‘No’ and make us stick with the not-proportional-at-all system we currently have until we get offered something a bit better?

I’m inclined to go for the latter.  There are other reasons, but those outlined above are the main two – the lack of proportionality and the fact that it precludes moving to a more proportional system.  I’m sure you (particularly the Lib Dems, who don’t much like it either, but will probably vote for it anyway) disagree as, indeed, my co-editors do – why?

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Free School support may cost Lib Dem leadership dear

Sep 20

Posted by Jeff in Parties, Westminster | 5 Comments

At their Conference today the Lib Dems have unsurprisingly but not unwelcomingly defeated its leadership over the issue of free schools. Lib Dem MPs have already voted in favour of the academies and now Lib Dem members have shown their disapproval. And there was me thinking that it was a one-member-one-vote system that decided party policy?

Anyway, the question of free schools is one that deserves scrutiny and it is something that I had initially thought was a great idea, even before I learned that SNP Education Secretary Mike Russell had floated a similar idea recently.

However, after consideration of the issue (and after a boozy discussion on the matter with a retired teacher a couple of weekends ago), I now know that had I been in that hall with those Lib Dem members, I would have voted with the majority against the proposals that Michael Gove is looking to implement with zeal.

The main reasons that I have come to this conclusion is quite simply based on the twin teamwork concepts that you’re ‘only as fast as your slowest team member’ and that ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’.

Taking the former of these philosophies first, there is no doubt that the better educated a child is on the lowest rung then the more likely it will be that that child can climb out of poverty and ensure social mobility is realised. However, free schools will inevitably favour those who are further up the social ladder than those stuck at the bottom. For all the rhetoric that problem areas can be targeted and the middle classes will ensure the income stream net is wide, I simply don’t believe it and instead believe that free schools will become ivory towers for the relatively well-off that leaves the kids that are already behind even more stranded with their standing start in life.

The second point on free schools is that a rising tide lifts all boats. That is, if a nationwide education system is available to all and improved across the board then all of society benefits. That has generally always been, and should remain, the plan A for the UK’s (and Scotland’s) education system. A logical extension to this argument is that private schools should be abolished, something the Labour party has considered from time to time (despite some of its leading lights sending their own children to private schools)

For me, this is less of a priority and not even necessarily an appropriate step. Private schools are built and maintained with private money and that marks them out as a separate argument to ‘free schools’ which take money from the public pot. Indeed, private schools save the public money (albeit with tax breaks) and the free schools cost the public money so the two really shouldn’t be conflated. Not that I’m actually suggesting that that is what happening.

Scotland once boasted the best education system in the world and that was through the old-skool, tried and tested approach of universal access and treating all pupils equally.

We shouldn’t lose sight of that either side of the border and, the political implications for the coalition to one side, I can only celebrate the Liberal Democrat delegates’ resolve in sticking to their principles and ensuring Free Schools are rejected by their party, even if it does ultimately prove to be a symbolic gesture.

Still, good to know that Lib Dem members believe that fair is worth fighting for.